A Proposition by Mac Wellman: The Dramaturgy of Asteroids

Half Straddle in Residence

Mac Wellman’s Proposition is a workshop of his new monologue Horrocks (And Toutatis Too), performed by Erin Mallon, directed by Elena Araoz, and discussed with Paul Lazar, in which the playwright asks New Museum audiences to consider: What is the dramaturgy of asteroids? And what could a play (or, better yet, an entire cycle of plays) about asteroids tell us about being human?

Wellman’s Horrocks (and Toutatis Too) is adapted for the stage from a short story of the same title, taken from his collection A Chronicle of the Madness of Small Worlds Each story in Small Worlds chronicles a tale of an asteroid, i.e., one of the “small worlds.” Wellman is now in the process of adapting the entire cycle for the stage. Lazar, who will be discussing this project with Wellman as part of Propositions, starred in the premiere of one of the works from this cycle, 1965 UU, at the Chocolate Factory in the fall of 2008.

Mac Wellman’s recent plays include: Bitter Bierce (Performance Space 122); Jennie Richee, with the Ridge Theater (the Arts at St. Ann); Anything’s Dream (Muhlenberg College); and Antigone with Big Dance Company (Dance Theater Workshop). He has published two novels with Sun & Moon Press: The Fortuneteller and Annie Salem. Sun & Moon also published A Shelf in Woop’s Clothing, a book of poems, “From the Other Side of the Century II,” an anthology of plays (coedited with Douglas Messerli), “Two Plays: The Land Beyond The Forest, and Crowtet 1 and 2,” the latter two volumes under the Green Integer imprint. Roof Books has recently published his Miniature, a book of poems. He has received numerous awards: NEA, NYFA, Rockefeller, Mcknight, and Guggenheim Fellowships. In 1990, he received an Obie for Best American Play (Bad Penny, Crowbar, and Terminal Hip). In 1991, he received another Obie for SincerityForever. He has received a Lila Wallace Reader’s Digest Writers Award, and most recently the 2003 Obie for Lifetime Achievement. He is the Donald I. Fine Professor of Play Writing at Brooklyn College.

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